There’s no doubt about it: Andrew B. Adler, the editor of the Atlanta Jewish
Times, is a fool.
His article
advocating the assassination of President Obama has by now been broadcast
all over the internet, and brought condemnation from every quarter down on his
head. His tearful
apologies, his denials
that he actually meant to call for Obama’s death, and the swiftness with which
major Jewish organizations distanced themselves from his crazed call are, perhaps,
punishment enough for the poor man: I can’t help feeling sorry for him.

The Atlanta Jewish Times
is not exactly the Forward: with a circulation of around 3,000, it is
an obscure publication that carries news of the local Jewish community and is
seemingly typical of the dozens of similar niche newspapers throughout the country
– except, of course, for the views of its editor, which are by
no means typical of the Jewish community. That being said, this incident
underscores a phenomenon that has been largely overlooked until recently, and
that is the extremism of a certain segment of the pro-Israel community. That
this element is present in the Jewish community was acknowledged by none other
than my old friend
Abe Foxman, of the Anti-Defamation League, in his statement
condemning Adler’s piece:

“There is absolutely no
excuse, no justification, no rationalization for this kind of rhetoric.
It doesn’t even belong in fiction. These are irresponsible and
extremist words. It is outrageous and beyond the pale. An
apology cannot possibly repair the damage.

“Irresponsible rhetoric
metastasizes into more dangerous rhetoric. The ideas expressed
in Mr. Adler’s column reflect some of the extremist rhetoric that unfortunately
exists – even in some segments of our community – that maliciously
labels President Obama as an ‘enemy of the Jewish people.’”

Foxman is right: there are indeed extremists among us who could easily be incited
to act on Adler’s recommendation – and not all or even most of them are of the
Jewish faith. We have millions
of Christians in this country who have theological reasons for fanatically
supporting the state of Israel, even over and above the interests of their own
country – not that they would ever admit the possibility of any “daylight”
between the nations. They are, to put it in popular parlance, “Israel-Firsters,”
and proudly so.

Adler, for his part, appears to be at least a sympathizer of the Chabad
movement, an international ultra-orthodox movement some of whose followers
reportedlycheered
the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist. I won’t get into their
theological justification for such kookiness: suffice to say that Chabad has
allied itself with the most extreme
elements, including within
Israel, with parties and
politicians
who call for the expulsion of all Arabs. Chabad of Georgia claims
Adler is not a member, but this has to be taken with a very large grain of salt:
after all, visitors to the web site
of his newspaper are greeted by a promotion
for the local Chabad organization.

Whether he is an official member, or merely a sympathizer, is a detail, however:
the larger picture is that the scenario imagined by Adler in his piece reflects
the all-too-familiar narrative
put out there by our Israel-Firsters, and by the Netanyahu
government, which is that Israel currently faces an “existential” crisis,
the inevitable result of which will be a second Holocaust:

“You are Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu. You are responsible for 7 million Israeli citizens
who comprise the state of Israel. You wake up one morning, and the Israel
Defense Forces’ military commander hands you a detailed report regarding
what to expect during a major conflict with Hezbollah and Syria five
years from today.

“The report states that
Israel will come under fire from 15,000 rockets and missiles, and that
casualties will be in the thousands. That’s thousands, not hundreds
– thousands.

“Simultaneously, another
IDF military commander strolls over while you are finishing your first
cup of coffee and hands you a report that Iran has reached nuclear launch
capabilities.

“If that’s not enough,
an Israeli diplomat informs you that you cannot expect much help from
the United States due to its newly implemented military budget and the
administrations never ending “Alice in Wonderland” belief that diplomacy
is the answer.

“To all the Netanyahus out
there, what do you do?”

Adler has three suggestions:
1) “Order a pre-emptive strike against both Hezbollah and Hamas,”
2) “Go against Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s wishes that Israel
take a lethal bullet in the name of preserving a healthy, worldwide
economic climate, and order the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities
at all costs”, and 3) “Give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents
to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the
current vice president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that
the United States’ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate
its enemies.”

Adler describes these actions as possible “options,” and you’ll note they aren’t
mutually exclusive – although carrying out the third option, in tandem with
numbers one and two, seems like overkill , if you’ll pardon the expression.
Yes, but not to someone so imbued with apocalyptic urgency that he would seriously
contemplate the third option. Because, you see, Israel’s very existence is
imperiled: it’ faces an “existential
threat.” Once you accept this premise, the idea that one could save the
lives of millions of Israelis by sacrificing the life of one man – even if he
is President of the United States – becomes all too plausible. True believers
in the “existential threat” narrative would have every reason to not only entertain
the prospect of assassinating a President they thought was anti-Israel – or
even a secret
Muslim – they would consider it a moral duty, whether they did it for religious
reasons or out of a devotion to pure utilitarianism.

In Friday’s column
I wrote about the case of the DC Five, the five bloggers for two liberal Washington
think tanks who were reprimanded – and, in one case, fired – because they used
the term “Israel Firster.” The same organizations – the American Jewish Committee,
the ADL, etc. – that pounced on Adler had just finished jumping all over the
DC Five for engaging in “toxic” and “classically anti-Semitic” discourse, promoting
the “myth” of “dual loyalty” among Jewish-Americans and supporters of Israel
more generally. James
Kirchick, of the Foundation
for the Defense of Democracies, claims to have traced the etymology of “Israel
Firster” back to Willis
Carto, the notorious anti-Semite who published The Spotlight newspaper:
avid researcher Kirchick doesn’t even bother trying to prove the term originated
with Carto (after all, how could one prove such a thing?): it’s enough for him
that Carto’s obscure publication used terms like “Israel-Firster” and routinely
hurled unfounded accusations of “dual loyalty” to make the entire subject off
limits to the rest of us.

In answer to defenders of the DC Five who say their writings are being taken
out of context, Kirchick argues
they are encouraging “far right” anti-Semitic discourse taken straight from
The Spotlight’s repertoire, and adds:

“As
if there were ever a context, other than that of, say, Jonathan Pollard,
in which it would be appropriate to label an American Jew an
‘Israel-firster’ or ‘dual loyalist.’”

I would ask Kirchick to read Adler’s article, and then revise his sweeping
statement. Surely Adler qualifies as a bona fide “Israel-Firster”: he’s no Pollard,
and he is very far from being an anomaly. Never mind his Jewishness: there are
probably far more alleged Christians immersed in a similarly apocalyptic
mindset who are just as likely to draw the same demented conclusions.

The leaders
of pro-Israel groups who lined up demanding the purge of the DC Five,
are in denial: if they doubt the existence of Israel-Firsters, let them
read the words of an American citizen calmly contemplating the assassination
of his own President – in the name of “saving” Israel.

Let them also begin to take some responsibility for Adler’s frame of mind:
faithfully echoing the hysterical cries of the Netanyahu government, they have
pushed the idea that Israel faces an “existential threat” from Iran against
all available evidence. The chief persecutor of the DC Five, one Josh
Block – a former AIPAC spokesman and longtime Democratic party operative
– told Politico there is “no
room” for “political rhetoric that is hostile to Israel, or suggests
that Iran has no nuclear weapons program” in “mainstream Democratic party
discourse.”

As our policymakers contemplate
going to war with Iran, the Israel-Firsters among us want to stop the
debate before it even begins. They want to police our language so as
to make it impossible to even talk about the issue in terms of what
serves America’s national interest.

I am struck by how much the War Party’s case for war with Iran resembles the
“ticking
time bomb” argument used to justify torture. Torture advocates routinely
pose the question in the following terms: suppose you were confronted with the
imminent destruction of New York City by a nuclear device, and your choice was
either to torture the details of the plot out of a captive terrorist or allow
the destruction of the city – which would you choose? This limns the scenario
Adler presented to his readers, in which the “ticking time bomb” of a supposedly
pending nuclear attack on Israel is prevented by the assassination of the President.
Granted, it’s an extreme “solution” – but, hey, only an anti-Semite could possibly
object.

The reality is quite different from the impending apocalypse projected by the
Israel lobby, which Adler takes to its “logical” and thoroughly nutty conclusion.
Bristling with weapons bought and paid
for by you and I, its hundreds
of nukes aimed straight at Tehran, the Jewish state has easily repelled repeated
attempts by its neighbors to enforce the Palestinians’ claimed “right of return”:
its military superiority is unquestioned. Our own National
Intelligence Estimate informs us Tehran stopped trying to create a nuclear
weapons program in 2003, and in spite of a relentless propaganda campaign no
new evidence has been uncovered to convincingly show otherwise. Yet to listen
to Israel’s leaders, and their amen corner in the US, one would think nuclear-tipped
missiles are already hurtling toward Tel Aviv. By manufacturing this phony “existential
threat,” the Israel lobby implicitly gave the green light to idiots like Adler,
who take their cynical propaganda dead seriously.

Everyone was shocked by Adler’s
article, but was anyone besides Kirchick, Foxman & Co. really surprised?
In the context of the hysterics engaged in by Israel’s most vocal
“defenders,” this was likely to happen sooner or later. Let us hope
and pray no one is sufficiently “inspired” by their rhetoric
to act out Adler’s prescription for Israel’s continued survival.

201203855054 Responseshttp%3A%2F%2Foriginal.antiwar.com%2Fjustin%2F2012%2F01%2F22%2Fextremism-in-defense-of-israel%2FExtremism+in+%E2%80%98Defense%E2%80%99+of+Israel2012-01-23+06%3A00%3A39Justin+Raimondohttp%3A%2F%2Foriginal.antiwar.com%2F%3Fp%3D2012038550 to “Extremism in ‘Defense’ of Israel”

It is more than curious that the mainstream media wouldn't touch the Adler story with a freaking stick. Not US media. You know, ABCBSCNNBCMSNBC and their 'hordes' of paid talking heads. I mean it's entirely possible that I might have missed a report from off'n the scripted page but, I don't think so.
Adler was so off the wall that the elite wouldn't dignify his insanity with even so much as a wink or a nod.
Or might there be just a touch of sympatico at work here…

The biggest Israel firster, I can think of, is one Newton Leroy Gingrich. He is being funded, with many millions of dollars, by some of the most extreme elements of Israel supporters. On top of that he he getting a lot of votes from crackpot, Christian Zionists in the South.They think that the end of the world and the Rapture will brought about if they back Israeli delusions about the Promised Land and rebuilding the Great Temple. They even booed the Golden Rule in a debate in South Carolina. They never read the words of Jesus. " Blessed are the Peacemakers. " As well as. " Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. "

Good article.
I was living in eastern Kentucky during the 2004 campaign when Bush made a campaign stop. During a conversation, a women remarked, "they ought to shoot the bastard." Now it's obvious that she didn't mean it literally, that's just the way they talk "down there" all the time. The Secret Service had her in custody within the hour.

Thank you. That was exactly my thought, too. This is a crime. The writer should be arrested, and his organization should have its funds frozen. Look at the major media focus and concern at the highest levels when there was indirect evidence that maybe an American loyal to a foreign government was planning to assassinate the Saudi ambassador. Here we have an American loyal to a foreign government urging the assassination of the US President. "Ooops, I'm sorry" is not enough, if there is equality before the law.

I've never seen anything about how the GCC works with this crowd? Are they separately seeking the destruction of Iran and Syria?

The Militant Doomsday Israel crowd can howl all they want but they will be blamed if there is a war with Iran. There is just too big of a paper trail to not implicate them. Their behavior harms everyone.

And why not assassinate Obama, they got rid of John F. Kennedy in 1963 just about the time Israel went nuclear with the French built plant and British supplied material in return for the 1956 favour called Suez. Israel has always been Immune from all normal rules of behaviour

Israel firsters are like a virus that has taken control of the living cell, in this case the US. Normal rules of conduct just do not apply to Israel. That is why the holocaust narrative is so essential to Israel and those who sustain that rogue state through words and deeds. It enables them to pull out the "existential threat" nonsense in order to stifle any debate about the actions of Israel or its fifth column in the US and UK. Iran is under a much greater existential threat from the rogue state of Israel than Israel is from Iran in actual fact. We truly live in an Orwellian world.

I always wonder when the Israel first cry that the Iranians call for the destruction of Israel. Why would that get them upset when their own bible state the exact same thing. Live by the sword die by the sword. Is not Israel the nation who has lived by the sword. They refuse to deal with others when they can murder them. They will only act human when they are in danger. Why do they not accept thier own bible and accept that they are going to die by the sword. I could can less if there is an Israel or not so please do not call me a hatred. I just wonder why they cry they exist because of writing in the bible but not accept all of their bible.

You have to hand it to the Israelis. They were able to take the anti-Semitic Evangelists and turn them into rabid supporters of Israel – what Barney Frank calls anti-Semites for Israel.
Compare that to the pathetic lack of imagination and tactical thinking shown by antiwar progressives (And that term that is no longer redundant since the banner of humanitarian imperialism has been held high by Juan Cole and Amy Goodman for the war on Libya.) When it comes to making common cause with antiwar Conservatives who oppose war, for example in supporting Ron Paul, the pwogs seize on every and any piece of trivia as excuse not to take action. Instead they continue to do what they have done for 30 years hoping to get a different result. No imagination, no organization, no common sense and no thought.

Johnny,
You got that right – Ginrich's benefactor is one Sheldon Adelson, a super rich casino owner worth probably 25 B$. Mr. Adelson is truly a dual citizen of both Israel and America, his wife is Israeli, he controls an Israeli newspaper and he has donated about $100M to an organization called, "Birthright Israel" which pays for American Jewish youth to go to Israel on free junkets for indoctrination into the notion that they have a second home in Israel. If elected, you can bet that Newton Leroy, will always have a light on in the White House hung out for Mr. Adelson, in case he may "need" to drop by and get something done for sake of his real home.

Sometimes I wonder if the politicains ,primaily congress and most presidential candidates, support Israel because they fear for their safety.The financial rewards for doing so are really secondary. They also fear the "Sampson Option" which Israel has threatened to use if they are ever up against the wall.
It appears the world has a mad dog to contend with. Only a total economic boycott might bring the Zionist to their senses.

An American citizen was killed by US missiles in Yemen because he was a Muslim preacher who propagated violence!!! No one will harasses Adler with questions,he will bee free to think and write and publishes and slogans as "Adler the man"will circulate ,in the beginning a few later in a flow (how happened with the book about baruch goldstein criminal;"baruch,the man".)

The MSM's obscene silence on the Adler story tells us all we need to know about which tails are wagging which dogs. This outrage against the American polity is the most significant story to emerge during the race for the Whitehouse. By all rights it should be the number one topic of discussion during the remaining Presidential debates, and should be reported above the fold and at the top of the hour every hour for many days and weeks to come by all our major media. Properly reported the Adler scandal would force a searing reexamination of the U.S./Israel "special relationship" (sic) upon our craven politicians and brainwashed electorate, halt the bomb! bomb! Iran drive in its tracks, and sweep Ron Paul into the Oval Office on a tide of righteous voter anger. The corruption within our Fourth Estate ,which behaves like a Fifth Column, knows no bounds.

This non-entity Adler either stumbled upon a frightening strain of the Zionist zeitgeist by himself or he was prodded to issue his warning. Despite all the heartfelt apologies and denunciations made by the Abe Foxmans of the world, as of yet Adler's threat to the American power structure still hangs out there with the odor of rotten fish, neither officially recognized by our press or government, nor repudiated by same. If turnabout were fair play the idiot Adler would already have been disappeared somewhere in the American Gulag. Why isn't this man already being held without bond awaiting trial?

Here's a thought experiment. What would be the reaction of our media if an America Firster like Raimondo publically called for the preemptive assassination of an Israeli Prime Minister who was nakedly advocating the use of American power to overthrow Israel's enemies primarily or solely in the Israeli national interest? Would the Raimondo story be entirely ignored or buried on page B19 by the Washington stenographers? Hardly. It would be front page dynamite picked up by every network and cable news outlet, parsed by every blogger across the political spectrum, and become the hobbyhorse of every mouthbreather in AM talk radio.

The non-reporting of the Adler affair is nauseating to every American.

Uh, isn't it against the law to threaten to kill somebody, let alone the President? Shouldn't the secret service have arrested him? Am I missing something? Note the silence of the MSM too. Wonder why??

What surprises me the most is the fact that Israel supporters take for granted that they can "forcefully dictate that the United States’ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.” Wat kind of power do they have to do this?

Listen people, Israel holds the trump card in this relationship and always will.

Why? Famously, Israel dropped an empty nuke bomb casing in the desert of Saudi Arabia as a warning. Israels warning was that it could hit anywhere in the gulf if its existence is threatened, politically, economically or militarily…… However, this warning was not aimed at Arabs, but the US!!!

Israel is committed to instability in the gulf and a constant state of war. Why? Because if it ever has to, it can drop the bomb on KSA's oil fields and claim it as self defense. Yes. Just ask yourselves what would happen to the world if those oil wells are nuked. American presidents know full well Israel does not give a damn about anything except its own survival. Whether or not every gentile or muslim is exterminated, or that the global economy destroyed is not a concern, only that israel survive….

The Christian Zionists were unknown and influential until the 1980s. They didn't exist as an influential political force until l the Likudniks found that they could be useful . And it doesn't take much perspicacity to realize which side is the one with the brains when it comes to the Israeli-Christian Zionist relationship.

i just saw a piece on al jazeera online about the double standards in the media coverage of the murder of the iranian scientist and the phoney saudi ambassador assassination plot in which they showed clips of the media blitz from CNN, fox, etc….truly disgusting and obscenely obvious.

I may be out of touch with the rest of america because i work 12 hrs a day and because i live in a liberal, educated coastal state, but are americans really that stupid and ignorant as to fall for this tripe??

fyi, the plutonium israel used to build its first batch of bombs came directly from the hanford plant in washington in 1962…….

there was a huge coverup over this and it is one of the most closely guarded secrets in the national archives as to how and how much of this material was taken, if at all. …

since the 60's Israel developed its own capacity to produce fissile material with uranium from apartheid south africa under quid pro quo for missile and other WMD technology.

Today, Israel has the most aggressive biological weapons program with strains od smallpox and anthrax that could wipe out half the world thanks to a highly developed bio-pharma industry that operates for the mossad under the guise of legitimate commercial businesses.

YOur 401k's most likely own some or all of these companies. Israeli tech and telecom companies have also infiltrated our country in almost every way. In fact, they have access to every phone call you make and email you send…

I can't believe that a lot of money hasn't passed into the hands of some of the most rabid and outspoken Christian Zionist ministers. They Israeli's have billions of dollars flowing into the till every year. A small portion of that is used to buy our political class and those ministers.

And the "apology" and all the "distancing" is a joke; an insulting joke. I can see an apology for an off-the-cuff remark…an isolated indiscretion…but this guy basically published a manifesto – a manifesto that comports with many previous fanatical statements and actions from many other like-minded fellow tribesmen. They're all on the same page, just as they've been for the last 100 years.

“If there is equality before the law” being the key phrase here. Of course anyone with active senses of sight and sound who has been alive over the last several decades knows that such a concept is pure myth.

Indeed, if Amerika really was the land of “equality and justice” touted by traditional high school civics bullsh-t, Andrew Adler would be in FBI custody right now. He indeed would be if he were of any other ethic background and supportive of any other cause.

Interesting that you should mention boycotts. The U.S. government has an anti-boycott law in place that prohibits any firms who do contract work for the U.S. government from "preventing U.S. firms from being used to implement foreign policies of other nations which run counter to U.S. policy."

It sure ain't hard to figure out for which foreign nation this law was written to benefit.

To be fair, I was shocked to find this story initially on CNN yesterday, online. Can't say if they also broadcast it on tv so more people could catch it.

As for Chabad – they are very good at roping in seemingly naive (hostile? passive aggressive?) people who want to feel they are close to something "significant" after wandering in the fleshpots of their real world elite lives. To see women who would have been "bra burners" back in the day, rolling over for forced separation of the sexes (while still purporting to criticize Islam for same) is to see folly in action. They seem deaf to the kinds of hate speech generated by Chabad from time to time. If it comes from something so oddly attractive to them, I guess it isn't hate speech.

Those killings of Iranian scientists by Israel and the Stuxnet centrifuge destruction are attacks for sure, which do not seem to have a parallel inside Israel. I suppose they fear a comeuppance some day. But it seems not to have happened, and probably need not ever happen if they come clean and sue for peace. Why doesn't Israel surprise everyone and play nice?

this is a link where im in a debate over war and enticing young americans to fight the wealthy elites war. I'm anti war and need help in this debate. if you oppose antiwar ideas feel free to join also. my email address is ericsdale@yahoo.com

I haven't read all your article nor all your posts…the only thing I can say about Adler is this: How does it feel? It's so easy for our pols to say kill kill killl, but when one of the peon's like Adler says maybe it's okay to kill we all fall to pieces. Go Adler!

No dopey, the biggest Israel firsters are the democrats, that is why you don't understand it, they are all for socialist programs and they love you but their real heart is not here ask Cynthia Mckinney, she was a socialist but not an Israel firster —-had to go. Dems constantly vote for the "sympathetic" and "oh ain't they so nice" but the fact is their loyalties lay elsewhere, you just ain''t noticed. Take another look, they are not America first or second or last…

please tell us who the Christian Zionists are and where they came about? It's amazing they were "unknown" and "influential", brilliant.
Lastly you think the Israel's have the brains? pffffft out-run them in about half second flat-

Funny you should care, the grinch proclaimed on national television that all enemies should be killed to howls and cheers. The President of the US decided to kill US citizens, we threaten to kill people all the time, and now you are worried that someone is threatening to kill our own, how silly.
Isn't killing the name of the game?

Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com, and a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute. He is a contributing editor at The American Conservative, and writes a monthly column for Chronicles. He is the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement [Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993; Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2000], and An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard [Prometheus Books, 2000].